Institute of National Remembrance

File:IPN logo.jpg

IPN Logo

Institute of National Remembrance — Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (Polish: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej — Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu; IPN) is a Polish government affiliated institution.

As a research institute with the special status it specialises in the legal and historical sciences, particularly in the recent history of Poland and, under Polish law, the IPN takes part in the investigations of crimes committed in Poland by the Nazi and Communist regimes and, since March 15, 2007, is empowered to carry the lustration procedures prescribed by the Polish laws.

IPN documents its findings and disseminates the results of its investigations to the public.

Purpose

IPN's goals and mission statement include:

• researching and documenting
  • losses which were suffered by the Polish Nation as a result of the World War II and the post-war period
  • patriotic traditions of fighting against occupants, Nazism and Communism
  • Polish citizens' efforts to fight for an independent Polish State, in defence of freedom and human dignity
  • crimes committed on Polish citizens, Polish people of other citizenships and citizens of other countries if wronged on Polish territories which are not affected by statute of limitations according to Polish law, such as:
    • deportations of Polish soldiers of Armia Krajowa and other Polish resistance organizations, as well as Polish inhabitants of former Polish eastern territories to the Soviet Union
    • the, so called, Operation Wisła, the 1947 deportation of southeastern Poland's Ukrainian, Boyko and Lemko populations by the post-war Polish authorities to the Western territories attached to Poland from Germany after WWII, the so called "Recovered Territories".
    • The violence against the Jewish Holocaust survivors in early post-WWII years carried by the antisemitic Polish mob, such as Kielce pogrom, Krakow pogrom.
    • crimes committed by the law enforcement agencies of the Polish People's Republic, particulary Ministry of Public Security of Poland and Main Directorate of Information of the Polish Army
    • pacification of Polish lands between Vistula and Bug rivers in the years 1944 to 1947 by NKVD
    • Crimes of the Soviet and Polish regimes in Poland committed from 17 September 1939 to 31 December 1989
    • crimes that fall under the category of war crimes and crimes against humanity
• the duty to prosecute crimes against peace, humanity and war crimes
• the need to compensate for damages which were suffered by the repressed and harmed people in the times when human rights were disobeyed by the state
• documenting and educating the public about recent history of Poland

IPN collects, archives and organizes documents of Polish communist security apparatus (22 July 1944 to 31 December 1989).

Organization

IPN was created by a special bill on 18 December 1998.

IPN is governed by the Chairman. Chairman is chosen by supermajority (60%) of the Polish parliament (Sejm) with the approval of Senate of Poland on a request by a Collegium of IPN. Chairman has a 5-year term of office.

The first chairman of the IPN was Leon Kieres, elected by the Sejm for five years in 8 June 2000 (term 30 June 2000–29 December 2005).

The current chairman is Janusz Kurtyka, elected on 9 December 2005 (term started 29 December 2005).

The IPN is divided into:

• Main Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (Główna Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni Przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu)
• Bureau of Provision and Archivization of Documents (Biuro Udostępniania i Archiwizacji Dokumentów)
• Bureau of Public Education (or Public Edudation Office, Biuro Edukacji Publicznej)
• Lustration Bureau (Biuro Lustracyjne) (new bureau, since October 2006)
• Local chapters

Activities

Research

The research conducted by IPN from December 2000 fall into four main topical areas:

• Security Apparatus and Civil Resistance (with separate sub-projects devoted to Political Processes and Prisoners 1944-1956, Soviet Repressions and Crimes committed against Polish Citizens and Martial Law: a Glance after Twenty Years);
  • Functioning of the repression apparatus (state security and justice organs) - its organizational structure, cadres and relations with other state authority and party organs
  • Activities of the repression apparatus directed against particular selected social groups and organizations
  • Structure and methods of functioning of the People's Poland security apparatus
  • Security apparatus in the combat with political and military underground 1944-1956
  • Activities of the security apparatus against the political emigration
  • Security apparatus in the combat with the Church and freedom of believes
  • Authorities vis-a-vis social crises and democratic opposition in the years 1956-1989 f) List of the repressed and sentenced to death
  • Bibliography of the conspiracy, resistance and repression 1944-1989
• War, Occupation and the Polish Underground;
  • deepening of knowledge about the structures and activities of the Polish Underground State
  • examination of the human fates in the territories occupied by the Soviet regime and of Poles displaced into the Soviet Union
  • assessment of sources on the life conditions under the Soviet and German occupations
  • evaluation of the state of research concerning the victims of the war activities and extermination policy of the Soviet and German occupant
  • examining the Holocaust (Extermination of Jews) conducted by Germans in the Polish territories
    • Response of the Polish Underground State to the extermination of Jewish population
    • The Polish Underground press and the Jewish question during the Germany occupation
• Poles and Other Nations in the Years 1939-1989 (with a part on Poles and Ukrainians);
  • Poles and Ukrainians
  • Poles and Lithuanians
  • Poles and Germans
  • Communist authorities - Belarussians - Underground
  • Fate of Jewish people in the People's Republic of Poland
  • Gypsies in Poland
• Peasants vis-a-vis People's Authority 1944-1989 (on the situation of peasants and the rural policy in the years 1944-1989)
  • inhabitants of the rural areas vis-a-vis the creation of the totalitarian regime in Poland;
  • peasants vis-a-vis the Sovietisation of Poland in the years 1948-1956;
  • attitudes of the inhabitants of rural areas towards the state-Church conflict in the years 1956-1970;
  • the role of peasants in the anti-Communist opposition of the 1970s and 1980s.

Among the most widely reported case investigated by the IPN thus far is the Jedwabne Pogrom, an infamous pogrom of Polish Jews "committed directly by Poles, but inspired by the Germans" in 1941. A selection of other cases include:

• Bloody Sunday (1939), an alleged massacre of ethnic Germans by Poles after the German invasion of Poland
• German camps in occupied Poland during World War II, the system of extermination, concentration, labor and POW camps operated by the Germans in occupied Poland
• Holocaust in Poland, persecution of the Jews by the German Nazi occupation government in Poland
• Katzmann Report, a detailed Nazi German report on extermination of Polish Jews
• Kielce pogrom, a post-war pogrom of Polish Jews
• Koniuchy massacre, a massacre carried out by Jewish and Soviet partisan
• Massacre of Lwów professors, the mass execution of approximately 45 Polish professors of the University of Lwów
• Massacres of Poles in Volhynia, an ethnic cleansing conducted by Ukrainians in Volhynia during World War II
• Nazi crimes against ethnic Poles, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against ethnic Poles by Nazi Germany during World War II
• NKVD prisoner massacres,a series of mass executions committed by Soviet NKVD against Polish prisoners
• Occupation of Poland (1939-1945) and treatment of Polish citizens by the occupants in that period
• Operation Wisła, the 1947 deportation of southeastern Poland's Ukrainian, Boyko and Lemko populations by the post-war Polish and Soviet authorities to the Western territories attached to Poland from Germany after WWII, the so called "Recovered Territories".
• Pawłokoma massacre, a massacre in 1945 of Ukrainian civilians
• Ponary massacre, the mass-murder of about 100,000 people performed by Germans and Lithuanians on Poles and Jews
• Poznań 1956 protests, the first of several massive protests of the Polish people against the communist government of the People's Republic of Poland
• Przyszowice massacre, a war crime committed by Red Army on Polish villagers durning "liberation" of Poland
• Red Army atrocities, examples of the above
• Salomon Morel, a case of a Polish Jew running post-war camp were political prisoners were persecuted
• Special Courts, the underground courts organized by the Polish Government in Exile
• Wąsosz pogrom, a pogrom of Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland
• Żegota, a Polish Jews reistance organzization

Education

IPN is involved in dissemination of its research results in the form of publications (particulary the "IPN Bulletin" and "Remembrance and Justice" periodicals), exhibitions, seminars, panel discussions, film reviews, workshops and school lessons. Since December 2000 IPN has organized over 30 academic conferences (particulary the Warsaw Congress of Science organized every year in September); 22 exhibitions in various museums and educational competitions involving thousands of students. "IPN Bulletin" is of an informative and popular-scientific character and contains articles pertaining to the history of Poland in the years 1939-1990 as well as describes the current IPN activities. "Remembrance and Justice" appears every half a year and is a scientific historical magazine. IPN also publishes books which are usually edited as collections of documents, reports and memories, but also scientific elaborations (78 of such publications have appeard till April 2007).

The Public Education Office co-operates on a permanent basis with the Ministry of National Education and Sport, having signed a Co-operation Agreement in 2001. IPN gives opinions of curricula and textbooks on history that are used in Polish schools and is involved in teacher training activities. The IPN also co-organises postgraduate diploma studies on history at the Jagiellonian University and the University of Maria Curie-Skłodowska.

Lustration

On 18 December 2006 the Polish law regulating IPN has been chanced (in effect since 15 March 2007), giving IPN new powers and replacing the old lustration institution, the Spokseman for Public Interest (Rzecznik Interesu Publicznego). According to the novelized Chapter 5a of the Law of December 18, 1998 "On the Instutute of National Remembrance", Lustration bureau of the Instutute of National Remembrance performs the following functions:

1. maintains the register of lustration statements;
2. analyzes lustration statements and collects the information necessary for its correct assesment;
3. prepares procedure of lustration;
4. notifies respective bodies about non-perfomance by non-judicial bodies of obligations in accordance with this Law;
5. prepares and publishes catalogues containing personal data on individuals, against whom there are saved documents:

a) produced by this individual or with its participation in connection with its activities as a secret informator or assistant in operative colleting of information

b) from the content of which it follows that this individual was regarded by security services as a secret informator or assistant in operative colleting of information.

First Polish lustration laws were addopted in 1997; only since 2007 they officially involve IPN.

Criticism

Wildstein list

Wildstein list refers to the partial list of names of people persecuted by the communist government and its agents which was allegedly illegally copied from IPN archives in 2004 by journalist Bronisław Wildstein and published in the Internet in 2005. The list gained much attention in Polish media and politics, and during that time IPN security procedures and handling of the matter were criticized.

Elections of the IPN president

Elections of new IPN president in December 2005 were also criticized. Janusz Kurtyka, current IPN president, was challenged by Andrzej Przewoźnik, a historian from Jagiellonian University. Przewoźnik candidature received a sever blow documents were found indicating he had connections with secret services. Przewoźnik was eventually cleared from he accusations, but in the meantime he lost the IPN elections.

Use of IPN by the government

One of the most controversial aspects of IPN is a byproduct of their organizing of previously secret archives of Polish security apparatus: revealing secret agents and collaborators (a process called lustration)

In 2006 and 2007 the use of IPN by the Polish government - primarily the ruling Prawo i Sprawiedliwość party - came under criticism by some journalists and politicians. One of the major policy changes of the PiS party was to raise the issue of unresolved crimes from the times of communist People's Republic of Poland. The critics of the government noted the abandonment of the thick line policy, which is forcing of all politicians, civil servants and others in positions of public trust to undergo a background check by the IPN. Since the results of those background checks are public, it is alledged that the motive of the PiS government is not justice but a smear campaign on their opposition. Further, IPN itself has been criticized for reliance on possibly falsified documents of Polish communist secret police (Służba Bezpieczeństwa). In addition to pro-opposition media in Poland, that issue has also been picked by some media outlets outside Poland, such as The Guardian, Chicago Tribune or Newsday. The Guardian drew a parallel to McCarthyism in United States and journalist Matthew McAllester of Newsday described the events as a political witch hunt.

Kuroń and Wielgus affairs

Much controversy was caused when in late 2006 Polish newspaper Życie Warszawy interpreted some of IPN presented alleging that one of the most popular Polish politicians, the recently deceased Jacek Kuroń, might have had contacts with the communist secret police. Antoni Dudek of IPN issued a statement that IPN takes no stance in this discussion, and the new documents only contribute to a better understating of the history of Polish Roundtable Agreement.

Similar controversy was caused after revelation that Stanisław Wielgus, former Roman Catholic archbishop of Warsaw, was a communist secret police informer. Archbishop Wielgus is the highest-ranking Church leader to admit that he agreed to spy for an East European communist state.

Similar documents, catalogued and made public by IPN research, surfaced several in Polish politics, with varying accusations as to what faction of Polish politicians is trying to use them to damage another faction. Such discussions were common in Polish politics even before IPN centralized the communist archives: Jan Olszewski's government in 1992 after the Interior Minister, Antoni Macierewicz, was accused of using such documents for political gain. Later Vice-Premier Janusz Tomaszewski was forced to resign merely because he was called before the lustration court in 2000. Such documents also were mentioned during Polish presidential election, 2000, when it was alleged two recent Polish presidents and candidates to the elections, Aleksander Kwaśniewski, and Lech Wałęsa, might have had contacts with communist secret police.

Response to criticism

IPN actions have also attracted support. In 2006 an open letter was published, declaring that :

"History of Solidarity and anti-communist resistance in Poland cannot be damaged by scientific studies and resulting increase in our knowledge of the past. History of opposition to totalitarianism belongs to millions of Poles and not to one social or political group which usurps the right to decide which parts of national history should be discussed and which forgotten."

This letter was signed by former Prime Minister of Poland, Jan Olszewski, mayor of Zakopane, Piotr Bąk, Polish-American professor and member of United States Holocaust Memorial Council Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, professors Maria Dzielska, Piotr Franaszek and Tomasz Gąsowski of Jagiellonian University, professor Marek Czachor of Gdańsk University of Technology, journalists and writers Marcin Wolski and Ryszard Kapuściński, Solidarity cofunder Anna Walentynowicz, and dozens of others.

External links

• IPN Home Page (English)
• Template:Pl icon Original legal act creating IPN (Ustawa z dnia 18 grudnia 1998 r. o Instytucie Pamięci Narodowej - Komisji Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu)